


where do you run

by ofsinnersandsaints



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Canon Divergent, Comfort, F/M, Friendship, friends to .....?, grog 'definitely not attracted to kiki but still finds reasons to hang out with her' strongjaw, keyleth 'it's so weird i need comfort and solace and for some reason i want grog' of the air ashari, platonic (for now) bed sharing, takes place after the raishan/keyleth confrontation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-05-19 15:15:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19359547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ofsinnersandsaints/pseuds/ofsinnersandsaints
Summary: Keyleth is restless after her fight with Raishan and her forced alliance with a dragon she can't begin to trust.When she can't sleep, she seeks out companionship and despite a castle full of allies the only person she can think to go to is Grog, and she finds the kind of comfort and understanding she hasn't known for a very long time.(things start getting a little sexy in chapter 4 and then get pure smutty in chapter 5)





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Takes place during episode 70 because "call me child one more time" and Grog IMMEDIATELY stepping behind her is a big ass mood

It was sometime after midnight, and Keyleth had gotten zero sleep.

Not for lack of trying, she’d tossed and turned in her bed for more than an hour. As the clock crept towards one am she threw back the covers and moved to sit cross legged on the expensive rug covering the cold stone floor.

Mediation had worked in the past, so she closed her eyes and tried to settle her mind and calm her soul but no matter how hard she tried to clear her thoughts, they inevitably drifted back to Raishan which made her want to punch something all over again.

She was exhausted, verging on punch-drunk, and getting increasingly frustrated at her lack of sleep.

Determined to give it one more try she tried to imagine herself weightless, floating in a clear blue sky, but the whole time there was a pull, like a thread tied to her ribs, which kept tugging her attention down the hall to the second door on the left.

Restless, her skin feeling too tight, Keyleth got up with a curse and wrenched open the door to her bedroom and padded barefoot down the dimly lit hall.

There were guards at either end, but they didn’t seem to be paying her any mind. It was their job to make sure no one attacked, not to make sure everyone stayed in their proper rooms.

Still, she felt a little like a teenager sneaking into a boy’s room after the adults had gone to bed.

“Grog,” Keyleth called quietly through the door, because she worried a knock on his door might wake up Vex who had incredibly sensitive hearing. “Are you up?”

There was movement on the other side of the door, the heavy footsteps which she easily recognized as belonging to Grog. When he opened the door he looked obviously surprised to see her outside his room in the middle of the night. “Keyleth?”

“Were you sleeping?” she asked, suddenly embarrassed and uncertain. The last thing he probably wanted was to be bugged in the middle of the night by an awkward druid. He’d probably been getting ready to go bed; she should have thought this through instead of going on impulse. “I’m sorry-gods, I shouldn’t have barged in like this.”

Keyleth was already taking a step back when he smiled, small enough it was barely visible through his beard. “You didn’t barge in, you’re still in the hallway. Did you need something?”

She felt stupid and childish. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“Oh,” and as if that explained everything Grog opened the door and waved her in. “Welcome to Casa Grog. You want something to drink?”

Keyleth followed him inside, shutting the door behind her with a soft click. “You have alcohol in your room?”

“I have the bag,” he explained, picking up the Bag of Holding and dropping it on the table which was half covered with weapons. “We’ve got that shitty tasting sand wine, but I was talking about the jug. You can get some decent beer out of it.”

“Oh, yeah. I’ll have a drink.”

Grog pulled two cups from the bag, one looked like a piece of dented tin and the other was encrusted with gems, then the alchemy jug and poured them both a glass. He gave her the pretty jeweled one and Keyleth wondered if he was being kind or if he didn’t see a difference in the cups.

She imagined that, for him, it was the alcohol inside that mattered more.

Since there wasn’t a lot of options for sitting Keyleth perched herself on the edge of the bed, and Grog all but sprawled in the chair next to the table. Letting herself be distracted she studied the chair because Grog usually dwarfed most furniture, but this one actually seemed to be made for him. “Did Percy get you new furniture?”

“Yeah,” he said as a he took a long drag from the cup, then immediately reached for the jug to refill it. “Had it ‘specially made because all the shit here is made for scrawny people. I got a backache from everything. What are you doing here?”

He tacked the question on the end like he’d only just thought about it, but Keyleth knew he was more clever than he let on and was likely trying to catch her off guard with the hopes of getting an honest answer.

“I can’t just want to hang out?” she evaded, taking a large drink of the beer. She had the vague idea of getting drunk but wasn’t sure it was the best idea in her current emotional state.

“Sure,” he shrugged. “But you’ve never wanted to before.”

“Fair enough.” She shifted, resting her feet on the foot board, and stared down at her bare toes peeking out from under her nightgown. “If you wanted to learn how to fire a gun, who would you go to?”

“Percy.”

She looked up at the immediate answer. “Throw a dagger?”

“Vax,” he answered, his brow lowered and she thought he understood she was leading up to something.

“And if someone wanted to learn to control their anger?”

“Me,” he answered as the corner of his lips twitched. “You feeling a need to control your anger, Kiki?”

Keyleth tried to portray a calm exterior, but there was a flame catching somewhere inside her and she thought if she didn’t vent some of the pressure she’d explode. Instead of screaming or yelling she just turned the cup in her hands, and kept her gaze steady with his. “You saw me with Raishan earlier.”

“Yeah, and?”

“And I lost control.”

Grog snorted. “You really didn’t.”

Keyleth was confused, she’d _felt_ herself lose control, had watched almost as a bystander as she raged at the green dragon in human skin. She’d seen Vex’s surprise and worry, had felt Vax’s stare.

They all thought she’d lost it.

“What would you call it then?”

“Being righteously pissed the fuck off, but you didn’t lose control. I know what that looks like,” he bit out. “Kevdak lost control when he beat me within an inch of my life, Percy lost control with that punk kid who drove the Briarwood’s carriage. You yelled and it was fucking justified. If it had been me? If someone had gone after Wilhand? I’d have taken an axe to her head, fuck everything else.”

There was something about how controlled his voice was which made him seem all the more dangerous; lounging in a chair with every muscle relaxed, but eyes as hard as steel. Something shifted inside of her as she watched him; her heart was beating differently in her chest, and she could almost feel the blood in her veins pumping quicker.

It felt like rage, but the edges were smoother.

Keyleth took a long drink, the beer wetting her suddenly dry throat.

“I’ve never yelled like that before.”

“Yeah, you have.”

She was surprised at his rebuttal, and tried to search her recent memory for a time when she’d let loose as she had earlier that day. “I have?”

“Well,” he corrected, “Maybe not quite that mad, but you got pretty close when Tibs killed that old lady who was running away. You were worried we were losing our morality.”

Keyleth remembered it vividly now that he'd mentioned it, those months when it felt as if their group was going to fracture at any minute. “I’m still worried about it. I’m worried I’ll get so mad I’ll forget where my lines are and become the thing I hate.”

“If you’re looking for guidance in morality, I’d go see Pike. But if you want to know what I think?”

“I do,” and she was completely sincere about it.

“We’re about to fight a fucking conclave of dragons, and if you second guess everything you do it’s like having one arm tied behind your back and we need you at your best. You can’t go forward scared of what you’ll do; and when it comes down to it, if you cross a line, you can always walk back. You can’t take back what you did, but you can try and not do it again.”

“I never thought about it like that,” she admitted. She’d always seen ‘wrong’ as something you couldn’t go back from. In her mind she had two choices, do right all the time, or be evil, but that wasn’t how the world actually worked.

“Is this why you can’t sleep? You just keep worrying about Raishan?”

“I’m just so angry, and there’s so much inside of me and I don’t want it. I want _her_ to feel it,” Keyleth all but growled, putting as much hatred and poison into the words as she could. “To carry the weight of it. I want-“

“Revenge,” Grog finished for her, his gaze level with hers.

Keyleth almost startled at the directness of it, of how he seemed to be looking into her as much as at her.

It was like being seen for the time, and she couldn’t turn away because this was what she’d come here in the middle of the night for.

Without even realizing she’d come here looking for the one thing she didn’t think she could get anywhere else: _Understanding._

“I get revenge, Keyleth. You don’t have to explain it to me.” He pushed himself off the chair and walked across the room, bending at the knees so his eyes were level with hers. “You helped me get mine against Kevdak, I’ll help you get yours from Raishan.”

Yes, Grog understood, and he wouldn’t make her feel bad because to him anger wasn’t something to be buried or dismissed, anger was a tool the same as his axe or her spells. “Thank you.”

“Anytime,” he assured her, and she believed it. Then he did something unexpected, he reached out and took her hand, slowing curling the fingers in until she made a fist. “In the meantime, I’ll teach you how to throw a punch.”

Keyleth smiled, the idea for some reason incredibly amusing to her. “You’re going to teach me how to fight?”

“It’s a good way to manage the rage,” he explained. “Who knows, you might even be good at it. You could kick ass even when you’re not a walking mountain.”

“I’d appreciate it,” she agreed, because she trusted him. “Thank you.”

He shrugged like it didn’t matter, but there was a softness around his eyes which helped settle her. “It’ll be nice to have someone to spar with, if you don’t mind getting a little bruised up.”

Keyleth shook her head. “You don’t scare me.”

Grog laughed and straightened, gesturing to her other hand as he asked, “You done?”

She looked down at the cup in her hand, empty. “Oh, yeah. Thanks.”

He took the cup from her hand and tossed into the bag of holding before draining his own cup and adding it to the magical abyss. Then he turned and leaned against the table, crossing one ankle over the other. “When you’re less pissed off and sad, remind me to tell you how fucking hot you were when you were laying into Raishan.”

Keyleth huffed out a surprised laugh, could feel the blush darkening her cheeks. She didn’t even know what to say to that so she changed the subject. “Can I ask for one more thing?”

Grog shrugged, “Sure.”

Keyleth smiled, he was the only person she knew who would agree to something without knowing what it was. That was how his heart beat, with unquestionable loyalty.

“Can I stay here tonight?”

He watched her for a minute like he was trying to figure her out, and she half expected him to ask why and then she’d have to try and figure out how to put these feelings into words but instead he just nodded. “Sure. But keep in mind I snore.”

They’d all slept around the same campfires for months, this wasn’t news to her. “I’m fully aware of that, Grog.”

“Good,” he stood up and studied the bed, then the room.

“What?”

“I’m just trying to choose which side to sleep on,” he explained, his eyes narrowing. “When we sleep in big houses we tend to get attacked from the windows, so I’ll sleep over here.”

Keyleth snorted, she might not be able to throw a punch but she was hardly helpless. “I don’t need to be protected, Grog.”

“Oh, I know that.” He sat down on the bed and began untying his boots. “But I’m a meat shield, that’s my job. Take the first hit so you can hit back.”

Keyleth moved across the massive bed until she got to the top, pulling back the covers so she could settle in. “We would make a pretty badass team.”

“Fuck yeah, we would.” She heard the sound of his boots dropping, “Lights on or off?”

Keyleth thought about the candles burning and couldn’t imagine going to sleep looking at flames which would be cousins to the ones which killed her people. “Off.”

He went around the room and turned off the lanterns and blowing out candles; in the darkness she heard him move closer, the mattress shifting under his weight as he climbed into bed beside her.

There was a tension there between them, thick enough she thought she could mold it, but it wasn’t awkward or weird. But shouldn’t it be? It would have been with Vax or Percy, but for some reason having his big, solid weight a few inches away, close enough to touch, allowed to breathe easy for the first time all day.

“You’re not going to jump me in the middle of the night, are you?” Grog asked after a moment of silence.

Keyleth burst out of laughing, shifting onto her stomach as the last of the heaviness in her gut disappeared, which she suspected had been his intention. “No, I think I’ll be able to control myself.”

“Don’t hold yourself back on my account,” he quipped as he settled on his back. “Just wanted to know so I don’t take a swing at ya when you start groping me.”

Keyleth shook her head, bundling the pillow beneath her head as she burrowed under the blankets, closing her eyes, a smile still on her lips. “Good night, Grog.”

She thought she heard a smile in his voice when he replied, “G’night, Keyleth.”

 

The next morning she woke to the sounds of Grog moving around the room. She pried her eyes open and watched as he gathered stuff from around the room. “The sun’s barely up, what are you doing?”

“These rippling muscles don’t take care of themselves,” he informed her pertly. “I’m going to pick up some cows, throw some soldiers around. Maybe run to Emon and back.”

“As one does,” Keyleth teased.

“You’re more than welcome to stay,” he told her as he picked up his axe. “But if you manage to roll out of bed before noon I’ll show how to punch someone without breaking your thumb.”

Keyleth’s eyebrows lowered. “You can break your thumb punching someone?”

Grog shook his head, an exaggerated look of disappointment on his face. “It’s just sad, how little you know. Come down and I’ll teach you a thing or two. Here,” he showed her his axe. “First lesson is free. This is called a weapon,” Keyleth laughed at his over-done enunciation. “You hurt people with it.”

“Sharp end goes into the bad guy?” Keyleth asked, playing along.

“You’re a natural,” he praised, slipping his axe into the loop on his belt. “I’ll see you later, Kiki.”

“See you later, Grog.” She thought about rolling over and going back to sleep but called out to her friend as he reached the door. “Grog?” He turned to her, a question in his eyes. “Thank you, for everything.”

“Anytime,” he promised and walked outside.

The group would likely be getting up soon, Keyleth thought as she once again got comfortable in Grog’s bed. She should probably go back to her room before anyone realized where she’d spent the night.

Not that she was embarrassed, but they would all think it meant something it didn’t and she wasn’t in the mood to explain.

Having said that, the bed smelled like Grog and his pillow still carried some of his body heat; it was an easy enough thing to wrap her arms around it, feeling safe and calm, and fall back to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Takes place during episode 71 & 72, where instead of Vex and Percy kissing while Keyleth replenished the ground, they have sex the night they defeat Vorugal which is unfortunate for Grog who, in this timeline, shares a wall with Vex.
> 
> For reasons.

Grog stared at the wall and finally gave up on the sounds coming from next door stopping anytime soon. 

When Scanlan made this mansion it would have made sense to give it soundproof walls, but nope, Grog could all too easily hear what was going on next door. 

He left his room, glaring at Vex’s bedroom door as he passed it, and wound his way down the hallway to Keyleth’s door. When he knocked, he heard her say come in without even asking who it was. 

She was sitting on her floor with books and glass jars surrounding her when he came in. There was a weird urge to lock the door when he shut it but he ignored it, putting his hands on his hips instead. “I’m here to cash in my favor.” 

She looked up at him, a confused and distracted expression on her face. “I owe you a favor?” 

He nodded and sat down on her bed. It wasn’t as big as his, but it would do for the night. “Yeah, remember the time you barged into my room in the middle of the night and then hogged the bed?” 

“I think I remember something about that. It was yesterday, wasn’t it?” Keyleth smiled, shaking her head as she went back to whatever druid project she was working on, “Why? You hoping to hog my bed?” 

“Vex is having sex in her room,” he told her dryly. “I don’t feel like listening to it.” 

Her brows furrowed in a way which would have been adorable if he thought about her like that. Which he didn’t. “Who is she having sex with?” 

“I assume Percy, but maybe gnomes are more her type.” 

“And they’re being…loud?” 

“She’s being loud, Percy I assume is laying back and thinking of Emon.” Keyleth laughed loudly at the joke, hiccupping as she brought her hand to her mouth and he considered it a personal victory to bring out that sudden burst of joy, especially considering how tough the day had been. “What are you doing?” 

“Making healing potions,” she answered, laughter still in her voice as she held up one of the corked vials which had the same coloring as the stuff he routinely poured down all their throats. Not Keyleth though, he suddenly realized with a surprise. He couldn’t remember ever needing to save her. “Pike went down while we were fighting Vorugal, and if we’d all had healing potions we could have brought her back a little bit sooner, and maybe a little stronger.” 

She was thinking of Pike, and there were fewer things which hit him closer to the heart than that. He was at a loss for words and cleared his throat, his eyes catching on her new prize. “Guess your fancy new stick doesn’t do everything.”

Keyleth followed his gaze to where the weird piece of wood was propped up in the corner. It was a twisty piece of magic and even he could feel the power emanating from it. “It doesn’t heal, just does damage,” she said, her mouth twisting in a kind of grimace as she looked at him. “Or at least it’s supposed to.” 

Grog couldn’t help the grin, realizing his suspicions had been right. Down in the practice pit he’d pretended her earth elemental had injured him, and the bop she’d given him on his forehead had hurt, but she’d obviously realized the truth. They shared an easy smile, comradery and humor flashing between them. “The lightning was pretty vicious, those dummies didn’t know what hit them.” 

“We’ll see how it does in a real combat,” she evaded. “Thanks, by the way.” 

Grog looked down at her, and belatedly realized she must have taken a bath at some point.

When he’d seen in her in the foyer, with bits of dragon spread out at her feet, she’d been covered in blood up to her elbows. Once glance at most folk would take in their group and think he was the gruesome, violent one, but they vastly underestimated the pretty druid who would happily eviscerate a creature and then dissect it.

But now her skin was scrubbed clean enough he could count the freckles on her face, if he could count that high. Her hair was still a little damp at the ends and there was a clean smell filling his nostrils; the battered leather armor replaced by something dark green and soft. 

“Thanks for what?” 

“For the Spire.” Her smile was a little crooked as she got up, putting her hand on his knee to give herself leverage. He’d seen her create lightning, seen her pull it down from the sky to hurt the enemy, but this was the first time he believed she had it under her skin. 

There was no other explanation for the sharp and electric sizzle from her skin touching his. 

She sat next to him while he tried to find his balance. “You basically took on the Yenk all by yourself. If it hadn’t been for you tearing him in half, I might not have a Vestige.” 

“I had to fight him,” Grog pointed out, still grumpy about how most of the fight had gone. “That fucker of a dragon kept flying off and I couldn’t get to him. You can turn into air and punch him-her?-in the face. I’m stuck on the ground.” 

“But there’s a downside to magic, even with my spire,” she pointed out. “I can only use so much and then I’m depleted, but you? You can hit as many times as you want and nothing can stop you.” 

“Unless, of course, I’m fighting something that can fly,” he argued. 

“That’s why we’re a team,” she reminded him, bumping his shoulder with hers. “I’ll hit what’s far away and you can finish it off once I bring it down.” 

It was pretty good plan and made him feel a little better. “Team badass.” 

“Team badass,” she repeated with a grin. “And I haven’t forgotten you promised to teach me how to fight.” 

Grog snorted. “I did, and as soon as we get a minute when we’re not actively running for our lives we’ll do just that.” 

“Fair enough,” she conceded and they just… sat like that. Quiet and comfortable, hips nearly touching, for a full minute until she sighed.

“Well, I still have an hour left before I’m done with the potions,” but she didn’t sound excited about it. “You’re more than welcome to sleep, if you want. I just have to finish this batch or it goes bad.” 

“I don’t mind staying up,” he assured her. “As long as you don’t moan while you do it.” 

She turned to look at him, mischief in her eyes as she tried not to smile. “Oh, didn’t you know? That’s step three.” 

“Very funny.” 

Keyleth grinned, proud of her little joke, and slid back down to the floor to settle near his feet. She started grabbing ingredients and bringing them closer to her as she spoke. “You can’t blame them for it, can you? Vex and Percy, I mean. After everything we’ve been through the past couple of months, I get why they’re doing the now-or-never thing.” 

“I enjoy a good now-or-never myself, but I at least have the decency to do it out of the house.” 

“I’ve always said you were the most selfless one of the group.” She shifted on the ground, tucking one leg beneath her and stretching out her other leg, the nightshirt barely covered her thighs and he could see a couple of scars decorating her skin.

He tried to remember where she got them, but they’d been in so many fights it was hard to keep track.

“When we get back to civilization you can now-or-never all you want,” she was saying as she added some of the herbs to her metal bowl.  Grog shrugged, uninterested in the prospect and not willing to wonder why.

“Heck, before all is said and done I might now-or-never. I want to at least once before we go up against Thordak.”

It took him a moment to understand what she was saying, and he wished he could see her face but she was staring down at her book. “Say again?”

Keyleth pushed her hair over her shoulder and shrugged, “I’m just saying if I’m going to die, I’d like to understand what the fuss about sex is before I go.”

“Don’t go to a bawdy house,” he advised her.

“Why,” she looked at him with a challenge in her eyes. “And if you say anything along the lines of my being too good-“

“No,” he interrupted, confused by her sudden flash of anger. “Who the fuck said that?”

Her green eyes narrowed at him for a moment before she let out a breath on a frustrated huff. “It doesn’t matter.”

Someone had obviously pissed her off and he’d ask her about it, but she said it didn’t matter, and he had to trust her on that. If someone needed their ass kicked, she could handle it. “I just meant, don’t find some rando because you don’t know if they’re going to be any good. If you’re going to die, the worse way to do it is after bad sex.”

“Duly noted.”

“Now that that’s settled, where are your boots?”

“I don’t know,” she went back to her potions. “I think I threw them over by the bed, why?”

Because she was clean and smelled good and they were talking about sex; he fucking needed something to do with his hands. “When we were trying to get the skin into the bag of holding you tripped.”

“I did?” she glanced up at him. “I don’t remember that.”

“It was your boots,” he told her, and got up to find them. “I figure while you’re making sure we don’t die, I’ll make sure you don’t trip in battle and make a fool of yourself.”

“Thanks,” and she sounded sincere about it. “I always forget you can do that.”

He looked at her, boots in his hand. “Do what?”

“Make things,” she answered as she lit one of her fingers on fire and held it up to the metal bowl. “It’s impressive.”

“You’re literally making life saving potions and lighting yourself on fire.”

Her eyes met his, “Yeah? And? There are a dozen people in my tribe alone who can do this. You’re the only person I know who can make boots.”

“You need to get out more,” he grumbled, searching in the bag of holding for his tools.

“You’re not wrong.”

Grog sat on the ground a few feet away from her and together they worked in silence for the rest of the hour. He was able to fix the broken sole easily enough, but there were a few holes on the sides, and the thread was kind of loose in spots, so he did what he could to patch them up.

She’d need a new pair sooner rather than later though.

“Done,” she announced and he looked up in time to see her rolling her neck and shoulders and when that little gesture got him going he knew he was in a world trouble.

It had just been a while, he told himself, a few months without a woman would do this to any red-blooded male. The fact he hadn’t once thought about biting Vex’s neck, and hearing her have sex right door had caused him irritation instead of arousal, didn’t mean anything.

Next to him, completely oblivious to his internal struggle, Keyleth stared at the mess on the floor. “Screw it, I’ll clean it up in the morning. Are you ready to sleep?”

There was a flash of leg as she stood up and he didn’t trust himself to say anything more than, “Yep.”

Grog got up and headed straight for the bed; when he’d been a kid he’d slept and lived in his clothes. It wasn’t until he’d moved in Pike and Wilhand that he learned some people slept in nothing, or next to, but he could never quite get to that point. If he anything happened, he wanted to be ready, so he wore his pants to bed and usually kept his axe under his pillow.

But nothing could get to them in Scanlan’s mansion so he’d left his weapons in his room, and had walked barefoot to Keyleth’s. The only thing he still wore were his pants.

“Are you okay with the lights off?”

“I can sleep in a hailstorm, Keyleth. It don’t matter to me.”

“I wish I was like that,” she complained, and the room went dark. He didn’t have the belt on so he couldn’t see anything but he could hear her footsteps, the movement of the blankets being pulled back, and the added heat of her body when she settled a few inches away from him. “It always takes me an hour to get to sleep after lying down and if it’s too quiet or too loud I can’t sleep at all.”

Grog was surprised by the complaint because he remembered the night before, he’d gotten into bed and within a few minutes he’d heard her breath even out. He’d been paying close attention, worried she’d have a nightmare or something, but she’d slept soundly until he’d gotten up in the morning.

“Uh, I have an idea.”

“Okay?”

The bed wasn’t big, so it was an easy enough thing to reach out and find her arm, and she was a wisp of a thing so he just pulled her across the mattress towards him. “You know, when you asked me not to jump you yesterday, I kind of figured the agreement was a mutual.”

“Keyleth,” he started, his words clear, if a little sharp. “If I jump you, it’ll be with the lights on.”

“Oh.”

“After Pike died,” the words caught, and his heart squeezed painfully in his chest. It would always be a hard thing to remember, how he’d lost her and almost hadn’t gotten her back. Grog cleared his throat and tried again for casual, “She had trouble sleeping when it was too quiet, she said it reminded her of the black, so she’d sleep on my chest and listen to my heart. It helped.”

Keyleth cleared her throat and while she was still stiff as a board next to him she didn’t pull away or try to wiggle back to her side of the bed. After a second, which he figured she used to talk herself in and out of it, she pressed against his side.

Grog sighed because she wasn’t breathing. “You’re making this weird, Keyleth.”

He heard her snort but she relaxed a bit against him. “I don’t know why you expected me to be anything else but awkward.”

“You can do this,” he deadpanned. “I believe in you.”

She huffed out a laugh and moved next to him. This was a really fucking bad idea on his part, but he’d seen the proof of her sleepless nights and it was only smart to make sure they were all ready to fight at a moment’s notice.

Yeah, he told himself dryly as he wrapped his arm around her shoulders, sharing a bed with the druid, her head on his chest, was definitely for the greater good.

“G’night, Keyleth.”

She murmured her good night, her breath warm against his chest as her body slowly molded itself around him.

He could feel her body relaxing, muscle by muscle. The whole point had been to help her, but having her next so close calmed him too. Settled him.

Her breathing slowed along with his heart beats and he was half way to sleep himself when her arm moved against his side and then drape over his stomach.

There was only one conclusion to come to as his heart stumbled inside his chest: He was fucked.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Between 73 & 74, pretending the group goes to bed after the Zigarat and before going to Daxio

This time when Keyleth went to his room she didn’t knock first, she opened it with a frustrated sound and slammed it behind her.

“Feeling something, are we?” Grog asked from the basin where he was washing up with a rag.

The sight of Grog shirtless was nothing new, it was the only thing he ever was, but something about the light sheen of water on his chest made her lose her step and stumble on the stone floor.

He looked at her sharply, “I just fixed those boots.”

“Wasn’t the boots,” she assured him, a deep red coloring her cheeks. “That one was all me.”

Grog didn’t look convinced but he just shrugged as if accepting the answer anyway. “What’s got your leaves in a bunch?”

“Percy!” She bit out, suddenly remembering why she’d stormed into Grog’s room in the first place. “Do we still have that sand wine?”

She was already reaching for the Bag of Holding when he said they still had it. “You really want to go there? That stuff’s strong, and I remember right the last time you had a sip of it you were drunk for three days.”

Keyleth’s lips quirked at the exaggeration. “I was drunk for like an hour, and I couldn’t feel my tongue for most of it.”

“Did I ever tell you how it was made?”

She stopped with her hand half way in the bag, a bizarre feeling as her arm was suspended in the magical pocket where all their things were kept. “No, how is it made?”

He smirked, as if enjoying being the one with the knowledge for once. “If you want to drink it, you definitely don’t want to know.”

Keyleth considered it. “You’re right, I don’t want to know,” and pulled out the bottle.

Grog eyed her from the basin, “Am I going to have to carry you back to your room?”

“Nope,” she answered and hopped up onto his bed. “It turns out your bed is more comfortable than mine, so I fully intend to pass out right here.”

“Making yourself at home, are you?” He asked, dropping the rag into the bowl and walking towards her. “And what’s this about Percy?”

“I’m mad at him. Will you open this for me?”

Grog took the bottle and popped the cork. “Why are you mad at Percy?”

“Because he stabbed Raishan,” Keyleth explained, taking the bottle from him. “That was supposed to be mine. You promised me.”

He looked briefly disappointed. “You’re right. I forgot to account for the Percy of it all.”

“It’s not your fault,” she admitted glumly and took a teeny-tiny sip of the liquor. She wanted to get buzzed enough to feel relaxed, not drunk enough to black out. “But if you can find a way to trip him or something, I’d appreciate it.”

“You got it, Kiki.”

“Thanks.”

“And he just poked her a little,” Grog added, sitting on the bed beside her. “You’re the one whose going to get to end her.”

She considered the possibility of her actually being able to do it and she wasn’t sure she believed it. “You think so?”

“I do.” He took the bottle from her and took a slightly longer drink that she had. “Get up.”

Keyleth did as told, her balance a little off as her feet hit the floor. She’d forgotten how quickly the sand wine worked.

“Are you drunk?”

“No,” she immediately answered, not sure if it was a lie but he sounded like he’d be vaguely disappointed if she was actually drunk off a single sip. “Just a little tipsy. I’m good. Why am I standing?”

“We’re going to work off some of your anger.”

She resisted the urge to giggle and jump from one foot to another. “You’re going to teach me to fight?”

“I’m going to teach you how to throw a punch,” he corrected. “Fighting takes a bit longer, but you’ll get a chance most people don’t have.”

Keyleth raised a brow, “What’s that?”

“A chance to land a punch on me.”

She laughed, the alcohol making the sound a little bit louder than usual. “I appreciate it.”

“First things first, how to make a fist.” He held up one beefy hand, “Like this. Thumbs on the outside.”

Keyleth matched him, holding her much smaller fists up in front of her.

“Okay, now for the feet.”

She watched as Grog moved closer to her then suddenly bent the knee so his head was at her hips; which put his head at just the right spot for… other things.

The absolute rush of arousal was so strong it nearly knocked her over and she was absolutely going to blame it on the sand wine.

“You okay?” he asked, his hand wrapped around her ankle.

“Yeah,” but her voice was a high squeak. “I’m good. Why?”

“You stopped breathing.”

Keyleth let out a breath, “Right. Breathing. That’s a good thing.”

He snorted and pulled her right ankle back and few inches, “In your nose and out your mouth.”

Keyleth was distracted enough by the advice she stopped focusing on how his fingers wrapped completely around her booted ankles. “Huh?”

“It’s how to control your breathing when you’re fighting so you don’t get out of breath.”

“It’s also how you mediate,” Keyleth pointed out, intrigued by the similarity between his calm and hers.

“Huh.” He stood up and took a few steps back from Keyleth and held up but his hands, palms flat. “Hit me.”

She threw a punch and even she knew it wasn’t enough to hurt a flea, much less Grog.

“Pitiful.”

Keyleth glared at him, anger and alcohol swirling together, and tried again; it felt a little stronger but her aim was off. “What am I doing wrong?”

“Your power is coming from your hand,” he explained.

“Is that not what I’m supposed to be hitting you with,” she asked sarcastically and he grinned, shaking his head.

“Your fist is the weapon, the strength comes from your shoulder and torso. Whenever you fight, Keyleth, you fight with your whole damn body.”

She focused on her body, all those years of meditation and stretching gave her an innate knowledge of her body. Keyleth tightened her core, straightened her shoulders, but the alcohol muddied her concentration.

His hands would span her entire waist if he wrapped them around her, she’d be able to feel those callouses on her skin if she wasn’t wearing so many damn clothes.

“Keyleth?”

She blinked and refocused on his face, “Yeah?”

He was grinning like he knew exactly what she’d been thinking about. “Where’d you go?”

“Not telling,” she muttered and before she could get distracted she punched his hand again and this time she felt the impact, the reverberation of it in her arm.

It felt _good_.

Somehow with that little punch, a little bit of her anger went and away and was replaced with the feeling of accomplishment. She jumped up and down on her toes, “I did it!”

“It was a decent start,” he allowed but even the tempered approval couldn’t dim her enthusiasm. “Try again.”

She reset her feet and was about to punch his hand again but he tsk’d and put a hand on her thigh which once against short-circuited her brain. “Leg back a little more. There you go.”

He reset himself, palms up. “This time I want you to try hitting me with both hands. Think about Raishan, and Percy getting the first hit. Think about your dad and your fire people. Think about it all so when you hit, you’re not just using your body, you’re using everything in you. When you hit something use every bit of your anger, focus it like a bit of your lightning.”

Keyleth held the pose, but didn’t hit. “Don’t you run out of anger eventually?”

He shrugged. “I don’t always fight with anger in mind, sometimes it’s frustration, sometimes…”

“Sometimes what?” she pressed.

“Sometimes love,” he admitted after a moment and it reminded her of the conversation they’d had outside the council room. The memory of it warmed her as much as the liquor. “I fight for you and the rest of our fucking crew. Ain’t run out of that yet. Hit me, Keyleth, show me what you’ve got.”

She felt bolstered by him, the alcohol making her feel loose and strong.

Keyleth hit once, twice, and in between the slap of flesh she heard the low rumble of his murmurs encouraging her, and urging her on.

She kept hitting, her vision clear and focused as if nothing else mattered except the next punch and the next.

“That’s right Kiki, one more. Little harder. Focus. Shit, felt that one.”

After a minute or more, she wasn’t sure how much time had actually passed, she threw a punch and stumbled, missing his hand completely and spinning when she lost her balance.

Her back hit his chest and it felt like falling against a stone wall, knocking the breath out of her lungs.

“That’s the second lesson,” he told her, his arm wrapped around her ribs to hold her against him, to keep her standing. “Exhaustion always comes after the rage is over.”

It was hard to focus on anything but his arm on her body and his breath on the back of her neck.

“I thought it was the alcohol.”

He chuckled and she could feel the vibration of the sound throughout her body, “That too.”

Keyleth reached up and put a hand on top of his, steadying herself through the touch, but she could barely keep her eyes open and rested all of her weight against him. “I was mostly joking earlier about passing out in your bed,” she began as she rested her head against him. “But fuck, I don’t think I can walk back to my room.”

“It’s fine,” he assured her, and she could feel him move behind her before his arm hooked beneath her knees and she was literally swept up and off her feet. “You can crash here. Not like you haven’t done it before.”

Tired and fuzzy in the brain, Keyleth curled into the warmth of his bare chest but it took only a few of Grog’s steps to get to the side of the bed. He shifted her weight in his arms, freeing up one hand so he could pull back the blankets before laying her down.

“You still with me?”

“Yeah,” Keyleth shifted on the bed and watched as Grog sat near the end of the bed, picking up one of her feet. “What are you doing?”

“Taking off your boots, we’re not in the woods, ain’t no sense in going to bed with them on.”

“Right,” she was half asleep already. “Glad I’m not wearing my leathers or you’d have to take those off me as well.”

She could feel his fingers fumble on her calf, but didn’t think anything of it as he pulled off one boot and then another. “The exhaustion gets easier to handle, first time’s always the hardest.”

Keyleth yawned and turned onto her side. “I’ll take your word for it.”

And before she could think anything else, she fell asleep.

 

“Grog!”

Keyleth woke with a start at the female voice yelling through the door, followed by an angry pounding on the door.

“Fucking Vex,” Grog mumbled and Keyleth felt him move beneath her. His big hand rested briefly on her shoulder, then ran down her arm to her elbow so he could shift her off his chest. “One second!”

Keyleth resisted the urge to grumble at being moved, because she’d been comfortable sleeping on him, his arms around wrapped around her.

Then she woke up enough to realize: 1. She’d been sleeping on Grog, which she couldn’t remember doing and 2. Vex was just outside and she was in Grog’s bed.

She briefly thought about hiding under the covers, but that felt even more ridiculous then just facing Vex and her questions.

“What took you so bloody long,” Vex demanded and Keyleth looked over to see Grog had opened the door, but only wide enough for the ranger to see him. Because of his size and height, she wouldn’t be able to see anything in the room.

Including a sleepy, wide eyed druid in a barbarian’s bed.

“I was putting on pants, unless you want to see what makes me so popular with the ladies.”

Keyleth could practically hear Vex’s eye roll. “I’m good, thanks. Have you seen Keyleth?”

“Was it my turn to watch her?”

“No,” Vex answered. “But her room’s empty and it doesn’t look like she slept in her bed. I’m just worried she might have done something stupid.”

“You mean like your boyfriend stabbing a great green dragon in a tiny room? Stupid like that?”

Keyleth could hear Vex sigh, “Point taken. But I’m still worried, it’s not like her to wander off without telling someone.”

In the bed Keyleth groaned, realizing there wasn’t an easy way out of the situation. Either she was going to have to lie to Vex, which she’d never been particularly good at, or she was going to have to—haha, lay in the bed she made.

Pulling the covers back Keyleth reached down to pick up her boots and walked towards the door, touching Grog’s elbow when she was close enough. “I’ll catch up with you later. Thanks for letting me crash.”

He blinked at her a couple of times but quickly cleared his face of all expression. “Yeah, we’ll try another round later, yeah?”

Keyleth pressed her lips together to prevent a smile, knowing there was a better than good chance Grog was intentionally making their fighting lessons sound like something it wasn’t to mess with Vex. Turning to her friend, Keyleth greeted her. “Morning Vex. Did you need me for something?”

Vex stared for a handful of seconds, her eyes going back and forth between Keyleth and Grog. “Allura’s ready to go to Daxio whenever we are, I was just making sure everyone was up and heading down.”

“Let me just get my stuff from my room,” Keyleth answered and hoped her fake confidence would be more impressive and convincing then the blush on her cheeks. “Where are we meeting?”

“The courtyard.”

“Okay, I’ll see you both down there,” and before Vex could ask any questions Keyleth slipped away.

A few minutes later she met the rest of Vox Machina in the courtyard of Whitestone, standing near Grog who was sitting on a bench. “Did Vex give you the fifth degree?”

“The what degree?” Grog asked, looking up at her.

Keyleth smiled, “Did she bug you about me being in your room?”

“Oh, yeah.” Grog crossed his ankles and looked at Vex who was obviously whispering something to Vax. “But I didn’t tell her anything because it’s fun to watch Vex squirm, she does think we’re fucking though.”

“I kind of figured that’s what she’d think,” she shrugged a shoulder. “We’ve got bigger things to worry about then group gossip.”

“Fucking-A.” Grog stood up, winked at Keyleth and moved to the middle of the courtyard. “Are we fucking doing this or not?”

“Daxio or bust,” Scanlan announced. “Hold my hand, Pike. So we don’t lose each other.”

Keyleth laughed at Scanlan’s obvious ploy as Vox Machina and Allura formed a circle so she could transport them across land to Fort Daxio. Allura stood on one side of her, Grog on the other, and as she clasped hands it was two distinctly different experiences.

As Grog’s fingers interlaced with hers, those feelings from last night as his hands had manipulated her body, wrapped around her, and tucked her in, came back.

In her chest, her heart stumbled and tripped in an attempt to right itself but as the magic swirled around them Keyleth came to the startling realization there was no going back.

As her hand tightened in his, the world blurring into mist and fog, she understood everything had changed.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Takes places during Episode 74, while the group is in Fort Daxio

Grog was sitting on the big couch in one of the living rooms eating when Keyleth came in, looking like she’d been put through the ringer. There was mud caked to nearly every inch of her, her hair was in a frazzled braid. She looked fucking exhausted.

“You okay?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever spent so much time in the dirt,” she complained, grabbing one of the pillows and dropping it on his leg. He watched, amused, as she stretched out on the couch, resting her head on the pillow so she was essentially laying on his lap.

“Comfortable?” he teased, she was on her side already, eyes closed.

“Yes, actually.”

“You should probably eat.”

“Later,” she grumbled, shifting on his leg. “I’m taking a quick nap. Wake me up in a half hour.”

His brows lowered. “When?”

Grog watched Keyleth open a eye. “Do you see that clock over there?”

“Yeah.”

“When the long hand is on the three, wake me up.”

“The what?”

She rolled over so she was on her back, looked at him like she barely found him funny. “I know you know what a three is. Pike taught you.”

“Alright, alright. When the long hand is on the three.”

“Thanks,” she rolled back over to her side and closed her eyes.

A few minutes later she was breathing softly and Grog was done with his food, but he didn’t want to getup and get more and mess up her nap, so he moved carefully on the couch so he could get more comfortable and rested his head back.

“I’m just saying, your wings only last for an hour which makes my broom inherently better,” Vex’s voice was saying from somewhere down the hall. Grog looked at the clock, the long hand wasn’t quite at the three but Vex was coming.

But if he let Keyleth sleep on his lap it would wig out Vex and whoever else was coming down with her and her twin.

“Time does not make something better, it just means it lasts longer,” Vax was arguing, stopping dead in his tracks when he came into the room.

Thinking about it from their point of view, it was a pretty damn cozy image they made, resting together on the couch.

“Keep it down, dumbasses.”

Vex’s eyes narrowed. “Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“You’re not interrupting nothing,” Grog corrected. “She’s just sleeping.”

“On your lap,” Vax said as if her position was somehow in question.

“I told you,” Vex hissed at Vax and then walked out and towards the kitchen.

Vax stared at them. “Vex said she saw Keyleth leave your room this morning.”

“Yeah.”

Grog enjoyed watching the half-elf squirm as he tried to come up with a word for whatever the fuck he was thinking about. “Was there a reason?”

“Yeah.”

Keyleth shifted on his lap, her eyes opening before sitting up. He kind of missed the weight of her but kept his eyes on Vax. “My ears are ringing,” she said as she pushed her hair back. “Hey Vax. How did recon go?”

“Good,” he answered, his eyes bouncing between them the same way his sister’s had that morning. “How did the tunnel digging go?”

“Good, I managed to finish before my spells gave out.” She pulled the leather strap from her hair and Grog was briefly distracted by her running her hands through the long strands. “So they’ll have a safe place to hide if the dragons come. How far did Percy get on his trebuchet?”

“No fucking idea,” Grog answered, shifting on the couch and resting his arm along the back of it behind Keyleth. “But I moved a shit ton of stuff for him today.”

She moved on the couch, scooting closer to him. She still looked exhausted, sighing a little as she leaned against his side and rested her head on his shoulder. “I need to get up and get something to eat.”

“Ain’t that what the fucking servants are for?” Grog asked and called for one of the ghostly servants and told them to bring them a bunch of food.

Vax stared at them both.

“I did what I could,” Pike was saying as she walked into the room with Scanlan walking alongside her. “But a lot of people were hurt. Hi guys.”

“Hey, Pike. Food’s on the way.”

“Oh, good.” She pulled herself up on one of the other couches and it surprised him that she wasn’t being as weird as Vex and Vax had been, with the druid plastered against him, half asleep. “I did see Percy and he said he was going to be a while still.”

“That answers the trebuchet question.”

“Are you guys fucking?”

Grog’s eyes swung to Scanlan who was in the middle of the room, hands on his hips as he stared at them. “Excuse me?”

“For the love of the everything, Scanlan,” Keyleth muttered with a roll of her eyes. But she didn’t move.

Pike scolded him by snapping his name.

“What?” Scanlan asked, all innocence. “Vex saw her leave his room this morning and now they’re all snuggled together. I think it’s a reasonable conclusion to come to.”

“It’s not your business,” Pike reminded him.

“I can’t believe you guys had time to gossip,” Keyleth cut in. “There was so much to get done today.”

“I didn’t gossip,” Grog added helpfully.

Keyleth laughed. “Me neither, but then again I was underground by myself for most of the day so there was no one to talk to but the roots.”

“That’s never stopped you before.”

She laughed again, so did Pike and Scanlan.

The food came then, pounds of chicken, and they all ate together; Vex eventually finding her way back to join them. Keyleth stayed next to him but moved away from his body to sit up and eat.

They drank wine and talked about what to do the next day, not able to come up with a clear decision, but they needed to go to the fire plane and get the armor for his buddy, Pike. He didn’t know the math but he didn’t fucking care about it.

Daxion could take of its fucking self, they’d take care of Pike.

“Let’s figure it out in the morning,” Keyleth announced, putting her hand on his knee to leverage herself off the couch. “I have to take a bath or I’m going to start grossing myself out. Night everyone!”

They all sent their greetings as Keyleth left and he briefly wondered what would happen when everyone went to bed. It had been three nights in a row they'd shared a bed and he could recognize a pattern when he saw it.

It was his turn to go to her.

The fact he put it off for another hour before he headed up to his room wasn’t a sign of cowardice, it was just… anything else.

“I’m going to bed Scan-man,” Grog said, putting down his ale. “I’ll see you guys in the morning.”

“Have fun fucking,” Scanlan yelled at him, cackling at his own joke.

“Have fun sleeping in your bed alone,” Grog called back and headed up to his room to dump the Bag of Holding and clean up before heading to Keyleth’s. When he opened the door it smelled fresh and clean and Keyleth was sitting cross-legged on his bed in the dark green tunic from the previous night.

He almost stumbled.

“What’s with the notebook?” he asked as he shut the door behind him, trying to act like this was all normal when his heart was racing like someone was holding a knife to it.

“I’m just trying to write down everything we still need to do,” she answered without looking up, pushing her hair back like it was bugging her. “It’s a lot.”

“You’re going to work yourself into a tizzy, and then you’re going to keep me up because you can’t sleep.”

She looked up at him then, a wry smile on his face. “You’re not kicking me out?”

“You’re already here,” he shrugged. “No sense in you walking somewhere else when there’s a perfectly good bed here.”

“Thanks. Can you think of anything I need to add to my list?”

“I’m sure you got everything under control,” he sat down on the chair and started undoing his boots. “And even if we did make a plan, it’d all go to shit anyway.”

She sighed and closed the notebook then pushed her hair back again. “Fair enough.”

“What’s with your hair?”

“I need to comb and braid it so it doesn’t get tangled but my arms hurt.”

The words caught his attention, “Were you physically moving dirt?”

“Spells ran out,” she shrugged. “And I almost done anyway.”

He swore under his breath. “You should have called me Keyleth, that’s what we have the earrings for.”

She waved away his scold. “You were helping Percy.”

“Keyleth.”

“Fine,” she rolled her eyes dramatically and it almost made him smile. “Next time I have to dig an underground bunker I’ll call you.”

“That’s all I ask. Now, come over here.”

Keyleth hopped off the bed, the amount of leg he could see was almost indecent, but he wasn’t really a decent guy so it worked out for him. “Why am I coming over?”

“On your knees.”

The look she gave him, flushed skin and wide eyes, absolutely told him where her mind went and he got a kick out of it, even if that wasn’t what he’d intended. “I’ll braid your hair.”

Her face went instantly soft. “You know how to braid hair?”

“Who do think did it for Pike? Wilhand?” He scoffed, remembering how bad Pike's grandad had been at doing her hair. “I can’t do nothin’ fancy and if you don’t-“

“No,” she reached out and touched his hand, still in midair. “I appreciate it.”

“On you knees then.”

“You did that on purpose,” she accused as she turned around and knelt down between his knees, her back to him. “And you’re going to pay for it later.”

He didn’t deny it, because now that he'd said it, he was thinking about it. “Yeah? How’s that?”

“I’ve seen your and Vax’s pranks, I could think of something.”

He tugged on her hair once, and something sparked hot and quick at the way her body followed it back. “Just don’t touch the beard.”

She looked up and back at him, “Deal.”

Grog released the tension in her hair. “I don’t have a comb,” he apologized.

“I usually just run my fingers through it if I don't have one.”

With a nod she couldn’t see he put most of her hair over one shoulder and combed his fingers through her hair one section at the time. Methodically he worked through the strands, careful with the tangles, and he thought this might be a kind of mediation as the rest of world turned fuzzy and his focus was completely there.

With her.

By the time he finished the braid, starting at the crown of her head and ending at the tips of her hair, he was reluctant to stop but he made himself tie off the red, silky strands with a piece of leather. “You’re all set.”

But she didn’t move.

It took him a minute to realize what was happening, but as he slowly came back to the world he realized her breathing had slowed. He could see her tiny fist clenched in the fabric of her nightshirt, her knuckles nearly white.

She was affected.

It hit him in the gut; _sex_.

He stared at her bare shoulder, red just under the skin where he could see the blush in full bloom. Grog had been tempted by a lot of stupid shit, a few of which he’d been done in by, but no matter how risky or reckless he’d never been able to stop himself from touching.

So he touched her.

One finger to her shoulder and the quiet little gasp was enough to make him stop, to give her a chance to pull away. When she didn’t, he added more fingers to the smoothness of her skin, running them down her arm to her elbow and back up again.

Grog leaned forward so he was all but whispering in her ear. “Stand up.”

There was the smallest hesitation but she raised up to her feet, turning around when he told her to.

He was tall enough her head was only a few inches above his even sitting down, and he could see how big the blacks of her eyes were. He knew what it meant.

Grog kept his eyes on hers as he put the palms of his hands on the sides of her legs, and slid them up her thighs until the fabric was bunched up on his wrists. He half expected her to say stop or step away, but instead she brought her hands up to rest on his shoulders.

Her eyes broke away from his and he couldn’t tell what she was looking at but he would swear he could feel her gaze on him, on his shoulders, his chest, his arms.

And he could feel her skin beneath his palms, his fingers itching to go further, touch more.

Instead, he stood up and kissed her.

His big, rough hands on the sides of her face as he took what he wanted fully knowing she could knock him down to his knees if she wanted to. Being such a big man it was often difficult to kiss a woman while standing, but Keyleth was tall enough to fit in his arms, lithe enough to make him feel invincible.

She rocked up to her toes and he could feel her fingers pressing into the muscles of his neck, her nails too short to bite into the skin. His arms wrapped around her, one high on her back and the other just above the curve of her ass.

He wanted every bit of her pressed against him, and he had all kinds of dirty images of what he’d like to do with her but he’d settle on her mouth. He nipped at her lower lip, the instinctive gasp giving him access to her the rest of her. Grog thrust his tongue into her mouth, imitating what he’d like to do with his cock.

She clung to his shoulders, her tongue reaching to touch his and it took every bit of his hard earned control not to turn her around and bend her over the table to fuck her long and hard, to pull a dozen new sounds out of her mouth while he buried himself between her legs.

“I think it’s time to go to sleep, Kiki.”

“Sleep?” she asked and he took more than a little bit of pride at how she blinked like she couldn’t remember what was happening.

“I want to fuck you, Keyelth,” he told her, keeping his voice low. “I want you laid out on just about any flat surface, wet and begging.”

She swallowed and his eyes couldn’t help but follow the movement in her throat. “Yeah. Cool. Okay, sure.”

He resisted the urge to laugh at the fumbling of words. “But when that happens, I want you to be able to use your arms, and not fall asleep half way through.”

Keyleth snorted out a laugh, her forehead resting on his chest. “You know what? That’s a fair point, though I hardly think I’d be able to fall asleep while doing... all that.”

Grog ran a hand down the length of her braid, then rested his hand on the back of her neck. “So sleep?"

“Sleep,” she agreed, but kept her gaze steady on his even as the blush on her cheeks deepened to a furious red. “But I’m going to hold you to the rest of what you said.”

He faked confusion. “Which part?”

She narrowed those bright green eyes at him. “You know which part.”

“I really don’t,” he deadpanned.

“You’re going to force me to say it?”

Her face was red as a tomato and he got a huge kick out of it. “I really am.”

She pushed her shoulders back, straightened her spine like she was going into battle, and looked him dead in the eye. “I’m going to hold you to fucking me on the first available flat surface when I can lift my arms and won't fall asleep.”

Grog held out his hand between them, “Deal.”

Keyleth shook her head, but she was smiling as she took his hand. “Deal.”

Having settled that, Grog put his hands on either side of her hips and picked her up so he could throw her on to the bed, her happy shriek a welcome sound after everything they’d been through the past few weeks.

“I could have gotten into bed myself,” she told him on a laugh.

“I thought you were tired?” he asked, using the pitcher of water and a rag to wipe the dirt off his skin. “I just saved you a bunch of steps.”

He wasn’t looking at her, but he thought she rolled her eyes. “You’re my hero.”

“I know, but it’s nice to hear.”

She laughed again and buried herself beneath the covers, rolling over to him when he got in bed himself a few minutes later. “We’re going to the fire plane, aren’t we?”

He wrapped his arm around her, “Looks like. You okay with that?”

“I know we need to, I know I want answers, but I’m worried about what those answers are going to be.”

“Those are worries for tomorrow, Keyelth. Close your eyes, go to sleep, enjoy the calm while we’ve got it.”

“Calm before the storm,” she murmured almost to herself, but he couldn’t argue with the logic. Whatever happened next, it was probably going to be bad.

So he’d enjoy this, he’d enjoy Keyleth pressed against him, her hair on his arm and her breath on his chest, while he could. Cause gods only knew what would happen next.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Episode 75, the City of Brass
> 
> Important time stamps from 74 to note because Reasons:
> 
> [Keyleth stops to wait for Grog when he gets confronted by the efreeti](https://youtu.be/2U21dJrY6ZI?list=PL1tiwbzkOjQz7D0l_eLJGAISVtcL7oRu_&t=10885)   
>  [Keyleth tries to say Grog belongs to her but get chucked instead ](https://youtu.be/2U21dJrY6ZI?list=PL1tiwbzkOjQz7D0l_eLJGAISVtcL7oRu_&t=11650%22)   
>  [Grog grabs Keyleth and throws her over his shoulder as they run away ](https://youtu.be/2U21dJrY6ZI?list=PL1tiwbzkOjQz7D0l_eLJGAISVtcL7oRu_&t=12056%22)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is fucking filthy you guys, i don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but either way this is where we are??? more wholesome content to come because even tho we took a hard left, we're still headed in the same direction

Keyleth came to in the dark, to the sound of someone shuffling around in Grog’s room where she’d fallen asleep.

She’d waited up for him, had tried to stay awake because more than a little bit of her hoped he’d make good on his promise from the night before. After more than an hour, she gave up and crawled under the covers.

“You up?” Grog asked from across the room, not looking up from his boots which he was undoing and dropping onto the floor.

“Yeah,” she lit her hand on fire to light the candle she knew was on the table by the bed. “Everything okay?”

Grog nodded and took off his other boot. “I was with Pike.”

There was something a little off about him, Keyleth would almost say he was morose except she couldn’t remember Grog ever being anything but angry or happy. Pulling back the covers, she got out of the bed and padded barefoot across the room.

She debated with herself the entire walk, all eight seconds of it, and by the time she reached Grog she still hadn’t made up her mind of what to do so she listened to her gut and slid onto his lap, wrapping her arms loosely around his neck. “Everything okay?”

One of his arms hooked around her waist, his fingers pinching a little at the fabric there. “Yeah.”

Keyleth ran one hand down the back of his neck, attempting to soothe. She might not know what to do for people who were upset, she’d been so isolated as a kid she didn’t know how to do much of anything, but she knew what she’d want. “Do you want to me pretend like I believe you?”

He huffed out a laugh and leaned back in the chair, his free hand coming up to rest on her thigh, his thumb brushing against her skin absently. “Nah, I don’t.”

She resisted the urge to wiggle against the touch, and remembered this wasn’t ‘wet and begging’ time, Grog needed emotional comfort, not physical. “Okay, what’s wrong?”

“I took the potion, right? The clever shit.”

“Yeah?”

“So I went to Pike, thinking you know, while I was smart and shit I would try to learn something.”

His voice was clipped and sharp around the consonants, and she could almost feel how much of that was directed at himself. “It didn’t work?”

“You knew it was temporary?” and he sounded so defeated, like maybe he should have known too.

Keyleth shrugged. “A lot of potions are temporary, but not all of them. I mean the healing stuff we take doesn’t wear off and we don’t know who made the potion you drank, so anything’s possible. I’m sorry it didn’t take, though.”

His sigh was heavy. “It was cool while it lasted.”

She continued her touch on the back of his neck, her nails lightly scratching the skin and since he made a quiet, kind of purring sound-which she would absolutely never say point out-she didn’t stop. “You know the rest of us don’t hold your lack book smarts against you, right? You’re not responsible for how terribly you were brought up.”

“You think it’s Kevdak’s fault?”

“Everything is Kevdak’s fault,” Keyleth informed him cheerfully and the corners of his mouth lifted almost in a smile. “But if you want to learn, Pike’s a good teacher and you’ll get there eventually.”

“I don’t know. If I could have read earlier, the Giant writing, it would have helped.”

Keyleth shrugged and could have sworn Grog’s hand slipped a little higher up her leg. “We’ve all fucked up at some point, Grog, you’re not immune to that. I still kick myself over not being able to bring the Sun tree back after spending eight fucking hours underground. Who knows how much easier things would have been if I could have done that?”

Okay, that time his hand definitely did move but she wasn’t sure if he was being intentional or just absent minded. “If you want, I can list all the ridiculous, stupid, and reckless stuff we’ve all done, the stuff we can’t even blame on our shit families.”

He chuckled but shook his head. “Maybe another time. Thanks, by the way.”

“For what?”

“When those efreeti tried to grab me earlier, when we first got here? You were the first person to stop. I just wanted to thank you for that.”

Keyleth was quiet for a second because she hadn’t thought about it in the moment, Grog had been flanked and they’d been talking about keeping him, and while she fully trusted him to take care of himself, she wasn’t about to let him go it alone.

“We’re a team,” she finally said. “Although in fairness, I was not at any point helpful during that whole thing.” Her eyes lit up, “See! I may be able to read but I’m shit at intimidating!”

His smile was a little affectionate even as he shook his head. “Yeah, how is it you can go to head with a green dragon with a mouth full of rage but when you’re in a back alley, nothing?”

The question was asked with humor so Keyleth didn’t take offense to it. “Anger is different than intimidation,” she shrugged. “And I’m not good at faking emotions.”

“Yeah,” he said, his voice an octave deeper as his finger tightened around her thigh. “I noticed you’re not very good at hiding them either.”

Keyleth gasped, “You were doing that on purpose!”

His grin was all cocky amusement, “I did say I was going to thank you.”

“I was trying to be polite,” she argued, punching his shoulder. “You were upset and I didn’t want to push.”

“Trust me, Kiki, if you ever want to push yourself on me, feel free.” She opened her mouth to say _something_ but Grog’s hand slid between her thighs and she lost the thought. “Now, do you want me to thank you, or not?”

She tried for cool, but wasn’t sure how well she managed it since ‘cool’ was not one of her strong suits. “Does this mean I thank you next?”

“Thank me for what?” he asked.

“For grabbing me,” she reminded him “When we booked it out of the alley you threw me over your shoulder instead of leaving me behind.”

“Wouldn’t do that,” he assured her, her legs spreading to give his hand more room. “Couldn’t do that.”

“This is-“ her voice cut off when his hand slipped beneath her sleep shirt. “This is a very precarious position for me, Grog. And didn’t you say something about _flat_ surfaces?”

“We’ll get to that,” he all but grunted. “Until then, I guess you’ll just have to hold onto me.”

She was perched on his leg, her balance contingent on sitting still which she thought might be a difficult thing to accomplish in the coming moments and the last thing she wanted was to lose her balance and fall to the ground. That was a kind of embarrassment no one could live down, so she had little recourse but to wrap her arm around Grog’s neck and hope she wouldn’t make an idiot out of herself.

His finger traced the skin just an inch away from where she actually wanted him and her breath caught at the impossibly featherlight touch from the big man. “Are you wet?”

Her grip tightened on him at the question. “Grog.”

“Answer the question.”

Something tumbled and tripped inside her at the order. “Yes.”

“How wet?”

“You could just figure it out for yourself,” she reminded him for purely selfish reasons because she really wanted his fingers where she was wet and needy. No one else but her had ever touched her there and she wanted him to be the first.

“Tell me.”

“Very,” she finally admitted, the heat of her cheeks practically a beacon of red. “I didn’t know you were going to hang out with Pike so I thought you were going to come back and make good on your promise from yesterday. I thought about it almost the entire time you were gone.”

“Did you touch yourself?”

“No.”

He looked genuinely confused by the answer. “Why not?”

“I wanted it to be you,” she admitted, past being embarrassed.

Grog’s finger brushed against the curls between her legs, and she jerked against the barely there touch. “You okay,” he asked quietly, his mouth nearly touching her ear.

“Yes,” she nodded. “I just haven’t done this before.”

He stopped moving, his fingers curling around her leg again which was the second to last thing she wanted. The actual last thing was him stopping altogether. “You haven’t?”

Her laughter was a little shaky to her own ears, “What part of anything I have ever done has made you think I have any experience with anything?”

Grog opened his mouth and then shut it again. “Do you want to stop?”

“No,” and she’d never been more emphatic about anything in her life. She grabbed his wrist to make sure he didn’t pull it away, “And if you even think about it, I will kill you.”

He nodded slowly, “If you want me to stop or slow down, just say the word.”

“I want you to kiss me,” she blurted out, her hand immediately clapping over her mouth, unable to believe she’d actually just said that out loud.

But Grog didn’t mock her, he didn’t even laugh, instead his gaze moved to where her fingers covered her lips. Reaching up with the hand he had nearly fondled her with, he grabbed her wrist, and pulled her hand away from her mouth. For some reason Keyleth hadn’t realized until now that her face was exactly level with Grog’s which made it infinitely easy for him to lean forward and kiss her.

She loved kissing him.

He wasn’t exactly a gentle man, even in this he wasn’t soft, and there was something about the roughness which warmed and heated her from the inside out. It could only be Grog kissing her with such aggression and single mindedness, his beard scraping against her skin.

The arm which had been wrapped around her waist tightened as he leaned into her, keeping her from losing her balance, but Keyleth was clinging to him anyway and wouldn’t have let go for anything. When he scraped her bottom lip with his teeth she heard herself made a quiet noise in the back of throat, Grog’s embrace tightening almost painfully.

She gasped in response, and as if Grog had been waiting for exactly that, he slipped his tongue into her mouth and Keyleth felt herself go a little wild at the erotic touch. Unsure what to do, she went with instinct and touched her tongue to his. The growl which came from Grog told her it had been the right thing.

“Spread your legs for me,” he murmured against her lips, and didn’t wait for her to listen before he started kissing her again. It was difficult to do while perched on his thigh, but she wasn’t about to do anything which might make him stop his assault on her mouth.

Keyleth shifted on his lap, and as soon as she gave him enough room he touched her; his fingers spreading those more intimate lips to slide along the wet heat.

“Grog,” she gasped, her hips moving against his hand.

“That’s right,” he whispered, his lips moving to her neck to press hot, wet kisses to the sensitive skin there. “Fuck, you’re so wet. That’s for me?”

“Yes,” and she felt no shame in admitting it. “I was thinking about you touching me just like this.”

There was a primitive sound deep in his throat which caused a visceral reaction within Keyleth and she knew enough about nature to never shy from the base or instinctual. Bodies were meant to have pleasure, and just because she’d never experienced it quite like this before, didn’t mean she shouldn’t let herself revel in it now.

He used those blunt fingertips to slide against her, occasionally bumping against her clit in an absent, almost accidental touch. Almost. She’d never known Grog to be anything but deliberate, and even while he mouthed the base of her neck, teeth and lips and tongue, he was driving her up with his hands.

“I have to get you ready for me,” he told her and she could feel his finger against her entrance. “I’m a big guy and I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Yeah. Yes. Please.”

She felt like an idiot, she was hardly the most charismatic and eloquent person in normal circumstances but Grog had basically shut off all higher brain function while she’d barely gotten a chance to touch him.

His face was serious as he slowly pushed his finger into her pussy and she could feel him stretch her, the pressure unlike anything she’d ever experienced before. Her hand was still holding onto his wrist and she tightened her grip as she began to move against him.

“Fuck,” he bit out. “You going to fuck my hand, Keyleth? Get yourself off on my fingers? That’s right, pull me in deeper. I can’t wait until that’s my cock.”

She whimpered at the promise in those words, at the feel of his finger pulling out and back in again.

When he kissed her there was no finesse or skill, just raw emotion as he thrust his tongue into her mouth, a filthy kiss that was somehow just as much of a turn on as the single digit moving inside her.

Keyleth didn’t know how Grog managed to keep himself so together; he kept her from falling with his arm around her, his leg steady beneath her, his fingers and lips seducing her beyond anything she could believe.

She could barely follow one thought with another, and still she wanted more.

“Whatever you want,” Grog answered and Keyleth blushed at the realization she’d spoken the thought out loud. “But first things first, I want you to get yourself off just like this, then you can have whatever you want.”

She didn’t have to be told twice, moving against his hand, his finger curling inside her to brush against those hidden, sensitive nerves. The base of his palm brushed against her clit and she realized if she simply gyrated against him she could get the pressure to last and last until the quick jolt of pleasure flashed through her body.

A small orgasm, but still it left her reeling and breathless.

“Fuck that was hot. Anytime you want my hands, just let me know because I could watch you do that for days.” Before she could think of anything to say in response to that, he scooped her up and carried her to the bed.

“I promised you a flat surface,” he reminded her, clearly having seen the question on her face. “I’m going to take this off you now, yeah?”

He was talking about the shirt and Keyleth sat up on the bed, her legs spread with Grog standing between them, and pulled it off. She was vain enough to be happy at the dumbfounded look on his face when he saw her naked.

“By the gods, I want to touch every inch of you.”

Keyleth reached out and grabbed his hand, wanting the same thing, and put it on her breast. “Please.”

His hand completely covered her tit, and it was so sensitive that every scrape of his callouses made her whimper, desperation making her needy.

Then he was fucking her again with his finger, the intrusion a welcome shock which sent her hurtling over a cliff she didn’t think she could survive.

“I can’t wait to hear you scream like that again,” he said, his words a mad rush as he worked the buckles of his pants.

“Do you think anyone heard?” she asked because she hadn’t realized she’d screamed, didn’t know how loud it had been, but she could feel the scrape of it on her throat.

“I hope they did,” he grinned, all feral passion. “Can you take me, Keyleth?”

“Yes,” and she thought might actually beg him if he didn’t fill her up, if she didn’t feel him inside her before the minute was out.

His big hands grabbed her waist and pulled her to the edge of the bed so her legs would have dangled off the end if he hadn’t wrapped them around his waist. She wanted to ask to see him, to feel him, to put her hands around his length but she didn’t get a chance.

He was inside her in a single, quick thrust which had her crying out again.

Nothing hurt, but every inch of her was stardust, expanding around him and taking him in.

“Oh.”

The word was so small and yet the only thing she could think of.

“You still with me?”

“Yes.” She tried to touch him but he was standing above her and the best she could reach was his forearm. “But you’re too far away.”

Grog shook his head, taking the hands which reached for him and pressing them back on the bed. “Later. Next time. If you touch me now I’m going to explode and I want to feel you come around my cock at least once.”

“At least?” Keyleth repeated, she’d already come twice and couldn’t image pulling more pleasure out of her.

“Flat surface, wet and begging,” he reminded her as he slowly slid out of her cunt. “I don’t think I’ve gotten the begging part out of you yet.”

When he pushed back into her, her entire body arched into it, her nails scraping his skin as she clung to him. Again and again he moved, the slick friction a wild and erotic contrast to the hardness of his hand on her skin, his fingertips pulling at her nipples, palming her breast and kneading it with the kind of force that might bruise anyone else.

But she was stronger than she looked and she could take whatever he gave.

With that in mind she tightened her legs around him, taking more of in and preventing him from pulling out more than an inch or so. The quick, short strokes were hitting her in the deep place inside her which caused lightning to shoot through her veins.

Grog must have sensed she was close because he released her breast and reached down to her clit, the pressure in her cunt and on that cluster of nerves was more than enough to give her an earth shattering orgasm. Every muscle tightened, her fists clutching the sheets when she’d rather be holding onto him.

She saw a brief flash of red in his eyes, a rage she didn’t fear but an indicator of how much he felt as she clenched around him.

“One more,” he demanded as he continued those short, hard strokes. “Give me one more.”

Keyleth could already feel her body building towards the next climax, one of his hands on her tit, the other on her clit, and her entire world was focused on him. She was on the edge, she could feel how close it was, but it was just out of reach.

“Grog.” His eyes flared again, and she realized it was the first time she’d said his name while he was inside her and it had obviously set something off in him. “Grog, please.”

Hadn’t he wanted her to beg? Didn’t she desperately want and need this last orgasm, the one she was so close to? “Grog, I need to come. Please.”

He picked up speed, both his cock and his hand, and she couldn’t believe how quickly she shot up towards that last explosion, her entire world a blinding white light as she felt Grog empty out inside of her.

“Shit,” she heard Grog say. “Shit, fuck.”

“Right back at you,” Keyleth managed to say as Grog pulled out, their fluids mixing between her legs on the sheets.

His hands were infinitely gentle as he ran his hands over her body as if attempting to soothe her. “Are you okay?”

“I need water,” she said. “And to use the bathroom. And then probably more water.”

Grog held his hand out to her and she accepted his help off the bed and then went back to the Bag of Holding to get out the jug and asked for water. She quickly took care of business in the next room and when she came back he handed her a glass and then used some torn linens to clean himself up and she unabashedly watched while she took sips of the water.

There was no way she could take him again so soon but she could admire him from a distance; big chest, broad shoulders, pants barely clinging to his hips. After he was done he held out clean rags to her so she could do the same.

“You didn’t answer my question,” he said as he put himself back together. “Are you okay?”

She reached for her shirt which had found its way to the ground and pulled it back on. “I’m great,” she told him honestly. “How are you?”

“Never better.” He pulled off the dirty duvet and replaced it with another one from the closet. He walked towards where she stood at the footboard and touched the hollow of her neck where he’d spent a good deal of time while she’d still been on his lap. “You’ve got a bruise there.”

“I can take care of that,” Keyleth assured him, raising her hand, the palm of it already glowing with a bit of bright green magic but he stopped her with his own hand.

“Leave it,” he said, then released her hand and looked a little abashed. “I mean, if you don’t mind, I’d rather if you didn’t heal it away.”

It didn’t take her more than a second to understand. He’d marked her, whether that had been a conscious decision or not, that’s what the end result was and she suspected he wanted to see that mark on her. Wanted the others to see.

And there was a part of Keyleth which wanted to keep it as well, to show she had no reservations about the man who had marked her. She lowered her hand and touched his shoulder instead. “We should probably go to bed now, we have a big day of pretending to be slaves tomorrow.”

Grog grunted and rolled his eyes. “You know this plan is going to go to shit, right?”

“Don’t all of our plans go to shit?” she asked as she climbed onto the bed, moving to her knees as she reached out to touch him, getting the contact she hadn’t been able to get while he’d fucked her brain out. “Maybe we should have stayed the S.H.I.T.S., it was a more accurate name. But we’ll be fine, we always are. We could always-”

He shook his head and pushed her back on to the mattress. “Remember what you said a couple seconds ago? Sleep now, strategize tomorrow.”

“But-“ he stopped her with a kiss, soft and warm.

“Sleep.”

With a sigh Keyleth crawled under the covers and as soon Grog joined her beneath the blankets she curled into him and within a minute she was a deep, restful sleep and felt safer than she ever had in her life.

It felt a little like home.


End file.
